Which oft affects the wisest: these, my lord,
Are such allow'd infirmities, that honesty
Is never free of. But, 'beseech your grace,
Be plainer with me; let me know my trespass
By its own visage: if I then deny it,
'Tis none of mine.

LEON.

Have not you seen, Camillo, (But that's past doubt: you have; or your eye-glass Is thicker than a cuckold's horn ;) or heard, (For, to a vision so apparent, rumour

Cannot be mute,) or thought, (for cogitation Resides not in that man, that does not think it,*)

a good interpretation of the original text. I have, however, no. doubt that Shakspeare wrote non-performance, he having often entangled himself in the same manner; but it is clear that he should have written, either-" against the performance," or"for the non-performance." In The Merchant of Venice, our author has entangled himself in the same manner: " I beseech you, let his lack of years be no impediment to let him lack a reverend estimation;" where either impediment should be cause, or to let him lack, should be, to prevent his obtaining. Again, in King Lear:

66

I have hope

"You less know how to value her desert,
"Than she to scant her duty."

Again, in the play before us :

I ne'er heard yet,

"That any of these bolder vices wanted
"Less impudence to gain-say what they did,
"Than to perform it first."

Again, in Twelfth Night:

"Fortune forbid my outside have not charm'd her!"'

-(for cogitation

MALONE.

Resides not in that man, that does not think it,) The folio, 1623, omits the pronoun-it, which is supplied from the folio, 1632. STEEVENS.

Mr. Theobald, in a Letter subjoined to one edition of The Double Falshood, has quoted this passage in defence of a wellknown line in that play: "None but himself can be his paral

My wife is slippery? If thou wilt confess, (Or else be impudently negative,

To have nor eyes, nor ears, nor thought,) then say,
My wife's a hobbyhorse; deserves a name
As rank as any flax-wench, that puts to
Before her troth-plight: say it, and justify it.
CAM. I would not be a stander-by, to hear
My sovereign mistress clouded so, without
My present vengeance taken: 'Shrew my heart,
You never spoke what did become you less
Than this which to reiterate, were sin
As deep as that, though true.

6

tel."" Who does not see at once (says he) that he who does not think, has no thought in him." In the same light this passage should seem to have appeared to all the subsequent editors, who read, with the editor of the second folio, " - that does not think it." But the old reading, I am persuaded, is right. This is not an abstract proposition. The whole context must be taken together. Have you not thought (says Leontes) my wife is slippery (for cogitation resides not in the man that does not think my wife is slippery)? The four latter words, though disjoined from the word think by the necessity of a parenthesis, are evidently to be connected in construction with it; and consequently the seeming absurdity attributed by Theobald to the passage, arises only from misapprehension. In this play, from whatever cause it has arisen, there are more involved and parenthetical sentences, than in any other of our author's, except, perhaps, King Henry VIII. MALONE.

I have followed the second folio, which contains many valuable corrections of our author's text. The present emendation (in my opinion at least,) deserves that character. Such advantages are not to be rejected, because we know not from what hand they were derived. STEEvens.

5

a hobbyhorse ;] Old copy--holy-horse. Corrected by Mr. Pope. Malone.

As deep as that, though true.] i. e. your suspicion is as great a sin as would be that (if committed) for which you suspect her. WARBURTON.

LEON.

Is whispering nothing? Is leaning cheek to cheek? is meeting noses?" Kissing with inside lip? stopping the career Of laughter with a sigh? (a note infallible Of breaking honesty:) horsing foot on foot? Skulking in corners? wishing clocks more swift? Hours, minutes? noon, midnight? and all eyes blind

With the pin and web, but theirs, theirs only, That would unseen be wicked? is this nothing? Why, then the world, and all that's in't, is nothing; The covering sky is nothing; Bohemia nothing; My wife is nothing; nor nothing have these nothings,

If this be nothing.

CAM.

Good my lord, be cur'd

Of this diseas'd opinion, and betimes;

For 'tis most dangerous.

LEON.

CAM. No, no, my lord.

LEON.

Say, it be; 'tis true.

It is; you lie, you lie:

I say, thou liest, Camillo, and I hate thee;
Pronounce thee a gross lout, a mindless slave;
Or else a hovering temporizer, that

Canst with thine eyes at once see good and evil,
Inclining to them both: Were my wife's liver
Infected as her life, she would not live
The running of one glass. '

7

1

meeting noses?] Dr. Thirlby reads meting noses; that is, measuring noses. JOHNSON.

8

the pin and web.] Disorders in the eye. See King Lear, Act III. sc. iv. STEEVEns.

9

theirs, theirs -] These words were meant to be pronounced as dissyllables. STEEVens.

of one glass.] i, e, of one hour-glass. MALONE.

VOL. IX.

R

CAM.

Who does infect her?

LEON. Why he, that wears her like her medal,2

hanging

About his neck, Bohemia: Who-if I
Had servants true about me: that bare eyes
To see alike mine honour as their profits,
Their own particular thrifts-they would do that
Which should undo more doing :3 Ay, and thou,
His cup-bearer,-whom I from meaner form
Have bench'd, and rear'd to worship; who may'st see
Plainly, as heaven sees earth, and earth sees heaven,
How I am galled,-might'st bespice a cup,

like her medal,] Mr. Malone reads-his medal.

STEEVENS.

The old copy has her medal, which was evidently an error of the press, either in consequence of the compositor's eye glancing on the word her in the preceding line, or of an abbreviation being used in the MS. In As you like it and Love's Labour's Lost, her and his are frequently confounded. Theobald, I find, had made the same emendation.-In King Henry VIII. we have again the same thought:

66

a loss of her,

"That like a jewel has hung twenty years

"About his neck, yet never lost her lustre."

It should be remembered that it was customary for gentlemen, in our author's time, to wear jewels appended to a ribbon round the neck. So, in Honour in Perfection, or a Treatise in Commendation of Henrie Earl of Oxenford, Henrie Earl of Southampton, &c. by Gervais Markham, 4to. 1624, p. 18:-" he hath hung about the neck of his noble kinsman, Sir Horace Vere, like a rich jewel."-The Knights of the Garter wore the George, in this manner, till the time of Charles I. MALONE.

I suppose the poet meant to say, that Polixenes wore her, as he would have worn a medal of her, about his neck. Sir Chris topher Hatton is represented with a medal of Queen Elizabeth appended to his chain. STEEvens.

3

sense.

more doing:] The latter word is used here in a wanton See Vol. VI. p. 203, n. 5. MALONE.

might'st bespice a cup,] So, in Chapman's translation

of the tenth Book of Homer's Odyssey:

To give mine enemy a lasting wink;"
Which draught to me were cordial.

CAM.
Sir, my lord,
I could do this; and that with no rash potion,
But with a ling'ring dram, that should not work
Maliciously like poison:" But I cannot

Believe this crack to be in my dread mistress,
So sovereignly being honourable.

I have lov'd thee,

"She'll first receive thee; but will spice thy bread
"With flowery poisons."

Again, in the eighteenth Book:

66

spice their pleasure's cup."

STEEvens.

a lasting wink ;] So, in The Tempest:
"To the perpetual wink for aye might put
"This ancient morsel."- STEEVENS.

with no rash potion,

Maliciously, like poison:] Rash is hasty, as in King Henry IV. P. II: "rash gunpowder." Maliciously is malignantly, with effects openly hurtful. JOHNSON.

Believe this crack to be in my dread mistress,
So sovereignly being honourable.

I have lov'd thee, &c.] The last hemistich assign'd to Camillo must have been mistakenly placed to him. It is disrespect and insolence in Camillo to his king, to tell him that he has once loved him. I have ventured at a transposition, which seems self-evident. Camillo will not be persuaded into a suspicion of the disloyalty imputed to his mistress. The King, who believes nothing but his jealousy, provoked that Camillo is so obstinately diffident, finely starts into a rage, and cries:

I've lov'd thee-Make't thy question, and go rot! i. e. I have tendered thee well, Camillo, but I here cancel all former respect at once. If thou any longer make a question of my wife's disloyalty, go from my presence, and perdition overtake thee for thy stubbornness. THEOBALD.

I have admitted this alteration, as Dr. Warburton has done; but I am not convinced that it is necessary. Camillo, desirous to defend the Queen, and willing to secure credit to his apology,